


Bustopher Jones and the Disappeared Emeralds

by Rumpleteazer



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: Detectives, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Mystery, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22821577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumpleteazer/pseuds/Rumpleteazer
Summary: When a rich cat's emerald collar goes missing, detective Bustopher Jones and his nephew Mr. Mistoffelees are on the case.
Relationships: Bustopher Jones & Mr. Mistoffelees, Mr. Mistoffelees & Mungojerrie, Mr. Mistoffelees & Rumpleteazer, Mungojerrie & Rumpleteazer (Cats)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Bustopher Jones and the Disappeared Emeralds

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on tumblr user amethyst-labyrinth’s Detective Bustopher headcanons, an au/headcanon so fun I just had to play with it. Unbeta’d and not britpicked.

“And, as the footsteps approached my hiding place, I suddenly knew who the dognapper was!” Bustopher whispered dramatically.

Mistoffelees listened intently even as he fidgeted. It was a good story, one of his uncle’s best cases, but he had heard it many times before. Idly he turned the fur around his feet white to match Bustopher.

“Oh, it’s just awful!” The voice of Mrs. Bassington, one of the mistress’s society friends, drifted down into the yard.

In unison, Bustopher and Mistoffelees looked up to the open window of the house, story forgotten.

“My dear Felicia’s brand new emerald collar has been stolen!”

Mistoffelees flicked his ear. Now this was interesting. Felicia was one of the rare cats in the area he did not know personally, as she remained within the grounds of the Bassington estate.

“I’m sure it wasn’t _stolen_ ,” came the melodious voice of the mistress of the house. “Perhaps it fell off again? We found it under your armoire yesterday…”

The voices retreated back into the house.

Bustopher turned to Mistoffelees, giving him a calculating look. “Think you can find it, lad?”

Mistoffelees cocked his head to one side, considering. “It would be easier if I knew how it smelled, but I can try.” He decided.

Bustopher nodded. “Go on, then.”

Mistoffelees sat back and closed his eyes, concentrating. His fur began to sparkle subtly. _Emeralds_ , he thought. _Collar. Felicia. Mrs. Bassington_. Slowly the image of something green and pink formed in his mind. After a moment he opened his eyes. “I see it. It’s under a small footbridge on a pile of rocks.”

Bustopher smiled. “Excellent! Lead the way, nephew.”

Together they headed to the back of the property, Mistoffelees bouncing slightly.

In the far left corner of the vast gardens, concealed by a bush, was a hole in the fence. They went through it.

The walk to the Bassington estate was uneventful. There was a brook just behind the grounds, with a small footbridge downstream of the property. Mistoffelees darted over to it.

In the distance, a dog barked.

Bustopher made his way to the bridge slowly, meticulously searching the area as he went. Along the fence surrounding the property was the faint scent of a cat, who he assumed to be Felicia. But outside the fence? Perhaps Felicia had an occasional visitor?

“Uncle!”

“What’s wrong?” Bustopher hurried to the bridge, finding no sign of his nephew. “Mistoffelees?”

Mistoffelees emerged from under the bridge, waist-deep in the brook, for he was a rare cat who did not mind getting wet. “It’s not here! This is where I saw it but,” Mistoffelees fretted.

“Calm down, Mistoffelees,” Bustopher interrupted kindly, “Focus less on what you did not find and more on what you did.”

Mistoffelees took a deep breath. “There’s a cat scent all around here I don’t recognize,” he said uncertainly.

“That’s something,” agreed Bustopher, sniffing the ground near Mistoffelees. “I found this same scent along the Bassington fence. I feel it must be connected somehow.”

“Should I look for the collar again?” Mistoffelees asked, readying his magic and heading for shore.

“First see what you can learn by investigating, now that you are calmer.” Bustopher suggested. “Leave no stone unturned, right lad?”

Mistoffelees nodded and ducked back under the bridge, thoroughly re-sniffing the rocks he had envisioned.

Barely a moment later he scrambled up the bank on the opposite side of the bridge. He locked eyes with Bustopher. “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer! They were here too!” He reported excitedly, shaking himself off.

“Aha! Well then, you’ll have to go interrogate them, won’t you?” Bustopher said with a wink.

Mistoffelees grinned. His uncle was gradually allowing him to assist more on his cases and, along with using his rapidly strengthening magical abilities to find lost objects, his main way of helping was getting information from his ‘contacts.’

After a brief backtrack to the kitchens of Bustopher’s home, Mistoffelees headed for the Junkyard while Bustopher followed several paces behind.

Mistoffelees calmly approached Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’s preferred hideout in the Junkyard, aware of Bustopher hiding in the shadows and hoping his friends were not. This was his planned first stop, for if the twins truly were involved in the missing collar case there was no guarantee they weren’t out pawning it somewhere.

However, Mistoffelees usually found what he was looking for quickly.

“Oi! Misto!” yelled Rumpleteazer.

“Over ’ere, mate!” called Mungojerrie.

Mistoffelees clambered over the junk to meet them. “Good evening, Teazer, Jerrie.” He held out a handful of cat treats, which they took eagerly.

“Wow, you got the really good ones tonight!” Teazer exclaimed, crunching happily.

“There’s an old butler I know who likes me.” Mistoffelees said mysteriously. “You two seem to be in a good mood, what have you been up to?”

Jerrie and Teazer exchanged mischievous grins, and Mistoffelees knew he would learn something useful from them tonight collar or no.

“We’ve got something special,” said Mungojerrie.

“Good timing, coming ’ere! We’re ’aving trouble opening it.”

The word ‘opening’ gave Mistoffelees pause. “What is it?”

“Tuna!” crowed Teazer, and moved to the side.

For the first time Mistoffelees noticed a large can in the clearing behind them.

“’Elp us open it, and we’ll share,” Jerrie offered with a wink.

Mistoffelees nodded and reached for the pull tab.

“No, no!” Jerrie waved a paw.

“With your magic!” Teazer bounced on her heels.

Mistoffelees sighed, but smiled subtly as he stood back and shook out his fur.

Jerrie and Teazer held each other’s paws in excitement.

Mistoffelees looked around the junk pile, then pulled a used napkin from inside a takeout bag and threw it over the can. He closed his eyes and waved his paws over the can twice slowly. He reopened his eyes and blew sparks off his paws, then whisked the napkin off the can with a flourish. It was open, of course.

Teazer and Jerrie applauded wildly, then with a whoop from Teazer they sandwiched Mistoffelees between them.

“Incredible!” declared Jerrie.

“Amazing!” added Teazer.

“Terrific!”

“Wicked!”

“Jus’ for that, we’ll tell you ’ow we got it, too,” said Jerrie as the three of them dug in to the tuna eagerly.

“Oh?” asked Mistoffelees, trying his best to only sound politely interested.

“There was this collar, see,” began Jerrie.

Mistoffelees feigned confusion.

“Real fancy-like,” added Rumpleteazer. “With jewels all over it!”

“Must’ve cost a fortune!” declared Jerrie.

“We’d gone to pick it up-”

“From the river,” Jerrie cut in hurriedly.

“Yep, that’s right, it was jus’ floating along,” Teazer continued cautiously.

“All alone, waiting for us to find it.”

Mistoffelees’s ear twitched. Something about the exchange seemed, pardon the pun, fishy.

“So of course we took it,” said Jerrie

“And of course I tried it on,” said Teazer.

“But it didn’t fit, did it?”

“Nope! It was uncomfortable!”

“So we figured we’d just give it to,” Jerrie’s voice dropped to a whisper, “you know.”

Mistoffelees raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He did.

“But then!” exclaimed Teazer. “A pom barked at us from a gate inna fence!”

“And of course we stopped to taunt ’im, stuck behind such a short fence.”

“But it turned out ’e’d taken a fancy to the collar!”

“So we said we’d trade it to ’im for tuna!”

“She told us to ‘get rid of it,’ anyway.”

Mungojerrie slapped a paw over his sister’s mouth. “So we slid the collar under the fence, ’e slid the can to us, and we dragged it back ’ere!” He removed the paw.

“Then jus’ when we got back, you showed up,” concluded Teazer, slightly subdued.

“The end!” They announced together.

Despite his burning curiosity about this “she,” Mistoffelees knew better than to acknowledge Rumpleteazer’s little slip-up. “That’s quite a story,” he said mildly, then steered the conversation to casual smalltalk.

When the tuna was gone (he’d stayed to finish, it was only polite) he made a hasty excuse and left the hideout at a pace barely below ‘suspiciously fast.’

When Mistoffelees finally rejoined him, much later than expected and still licking tuna from his whiskers, Bustopher quirked an amused eyebrow and said nothing.

They set off at once, for of course Bustopher knew which manor between his and the Junkyard had a Pomeranian, and Mistoffelees recounted the rest of Jerrie and Teazer’s story on the way.

When they reached the property they slowed, and crept quietly to the gate, but did not hear the dog nearby.

Bustopher peered through the crack between the gate and the fence, while Mistoffelees crouched to look under it.

In the garden a fluffy white Pomeranian had the collar on its side. The collar was so stiff it formed an open circle in the air, and the dog was trying to shove his face through it.

Mistoffelees stood up. “What do we do?”

“We very well can’t leave it here. If the humans find it someone will be accused of theft. We need to return it before that happens.”

“Do you mean…we steal it back from him?”

“Well. Needs must.”

Mistoffelees shrugged, then both leapt to the top of the stone fence.

“Pardon me, my good Pomeranian,” Bustopher called.

The dog jumped to face them on full alert. “Who are you? This collar’s mine!”

“Of course it is,” placated Bustopher.

The dog relaxed slightly.

“My name is Bustopher Jones, and this is my nephew, Mr. Mistoffelees. Who might you be?”

“Poppet…” said the dog, a little confused by Bustopher’s polite demeanor.

“Well Poppet, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance! We live just up the road you see, and we heard you had acquired quite the fabulous new collar.”

“It’s mine!” Poppet put himself between them and the collar.

“It is indeed! We merely hoped to have a look at it. May we come in?”

Poppet, clearly torn between protecting the collar and wanting to show it off, considered this a moment. “All right…”

Bustopher and Mistoffelees jumped down into the vast garden before Poppet could change his mind, but approached him slowly.

Still eyeing them suspiciously, Poppet allowed them to examine the collar.

“I say, what a striking collar,” Bustopher appraised.

Mistoffelees wrinkled his nose out of Poppet’s sight.

Up close, the collar was…ugly: salmon pink, with emeralds embedded around the circumference. The tag had a diamond in it, and clearly read ‘Felicia,’ but neither Mistoffelees nor Bustopher mentioned this.

“Wherever did you get it?”

“Two cats traded it to me for some old can. Quite the bargain, wouldn’t you say?”

“Indeed…” said Bustopher, sounding thoughtful. He leaned forward to inspect the collar more closely.

Mistoffelees, unsure of what else to do, quietly peered over his uncle’s shoulder.

Bustopher turned to look from a different angle, then got closer than ever before.

“My word!” He exclaimed, straightening up so suddenly that both Poppet and Mistoffelees jumped back in alarm.

“What? What?” Yapped Poppet.

“These emeralds!” Said Bustopher, sounding shocked. “I do believe they’re fake!”

Mistoffelees’s ears shot up, and he looked from the collar to his uncle and back.

“What?” Gasped Poppet, distraught.

“Why, they’re hardly the right shade of green,” explained Bustopher, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

“They’re not?” Asked Poppet.

“I should say not!”

By now Mistoffelees had caught on: Poppet, like all dogs, was colorblind. He leaned in to the collar again. “You’re right, uncle!” He announced. “These are too blue!”

“I’ve been tricked!” wailed Poppet.

“Now, now,” said Bustopher, attempting to calm down Poppet before he could alert any humans. “You said you only traded this for an old can.”

Poppet tilted his head. “Well…”

Bustopher pressed on. “So, you have suffered no real loss. Moreover, we’re the only ones who have seen it, and we can easily take it away for you.”

“Nobody else has to know,” added Mistoffelees.

“Yes!” said Poppet. “Yes! Take that thing away!”

“Right away,” Bustopher said, gesturing to Mistoffelees. “Come along, nephew.”

Mistoffelees picked up the collar in his teeth, nodded politely to Poppet, and jumped back on to the fence.

“Good evening,” said Bustopher before joining him.

“Just go,” said Poppet dramatically.

With that, Bustopher and Mistoffelees left the estate.

“And now to return this collar to its rightful owner at last,” Bustopher declared.

As they neared the Bassington estate, they became aware of movement in the bushes by the fence. There was too much motion to be a small rodent or bird, and a distinct smell of cat.

Bustopher held out his paw to stop Mistoffelees, and both retreated into the shadows.

Soon enough, a large, fluffy, gray Persian cat emerged into the moonlight. She must have caught scent or sound of them, for she was scanning the area attentively.

Bustopher stepped into the light. “Good evening,” he said, friendly but with a hint of threat.

After hesitating for a second, Mistoffelees followed.

The Persian, who had startled at Bustopher’s voice, became suddenly incensed at the sight of Mistoffelees. “No!” She shrieked. “No nonono! Where did you find that?”

Mistoffelees nearly dropped the collar.

Even Bustopher was momentarily thrown by the outburst, but recovered quickly. “The mistress of my house is good friends with Mrs. Bassington.”

The Persian eyed him warily.

“During her recent visit Mrs. Bassington was in quite a tizzy over her cat, one Felicia by name, and her missing collar. When we happened upon this one, with ‘Felicia’ inscribed on the tag-”

“No,” interrupted the Persian. “Where did _you_ find it? Why did you bring it back here? I knew those two shifty calicos couldn’t be trusted with one simple task-“

“Excuse me,” sputtered Bustopher. “Do you mean to say you _gave_ the collar to Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer?”

She squinted at him. “What did they tell you?”

“Me? Nothing at all. My nephew here merely overheard them bragging to each other.”

Mistoffelees shrank back at the sudden scrutiny.

“The hiding place they mentioned was not terribly clever, and we located the collar just East of here.” Bustopher continued.

The Persian sighed. “Oh, fine. Yes! I arranged for them to pick it up. I hated it! It’s far too stiff; I can barely turn my head while it’s on! Hiding it beneath the armoire wasn’t enough, so I resorted to desperate measures,” she concluded with a challenge in her voice.

“Indeed,” said Bustopher thoughtfully. “Am I to assume you are Felicia, then?”

“Of course I’m Felicia,” she scoffed. “Now _kindly_ get that collar out of my sight. Even if it fit, I certainly couldn’t be seen _wearing_ it. Look at it! It’s hideous.”

Mistoffelees nodded in agreement.

“I believe I may have a solution, dear lady. But first, I’m afraid I’ve been terribly rude! My name is Bustopher Jones, and this is my nephew, Mr. Mistoffelees.”

———

Mistoffelees sat with his eyes closed, fur glittering softly. “You hid it under the rose bush.” ‘It’ was an empty spool Mistoffelees had found in the parlor earlier that day. The master of the house let him keep it, since he seemed to be having a lot of fun chasing it around the chair legs.

“Which rosebush?” Asked Bustopher impassively.

Mistoffelees opened his eyes just to roll them. He pointed into the garden. “That group. Second from the end.”

“Correct!”

“Naturally.”

“Can you believe this?” Mrs. Bassington was visiting again.

Bustopher and Mistoffelees stopped to listen. Two days had passed since they returned the collar, and they had been waiting for the results of Bustopher’s plan.

“The gardener found it half-buried by the decorative fountain.” Mrs. Bassington continued. “It’s completely soaked in mud! It’s ruined!”

“Perhaps you could have the emeralds removed and embedded in a new collar?” Suggested the mistress of the house.

Bustopher and Mistoffelees looked at each other.

Mistoffelees laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> What time period is this? Who knows! Not me. I got the name Felicia from Great Mouse Detective. Can anyone guess where I got the name Bassington from? Hints: it’s an old British comedy book and tv series and it’s referenced in Bustopher’s song! Oh, and in it Bassington is hyphenated. With Bassington.


End file.
